Approached at dusk, it’s a breathtaking sight—SUNY Oswego’s landmark building bathed in a splendid luster. The cupola is suffused with a stunning glow, taking its place among the stars far above the campus and city.

The Normal Building. Old Main. Sheldon Hall. Whatever name alumni remember it by, Oswego’s signature structure marks a 100-year milestone in 2013 with a return to its former glory.

The college’s historic home has been repaired and renewed in a $10 million exterior renovation. A capital project paid for by New York State and overseen by the State University Construction Fund, the restoration demanded historical authenticity.

Architects and SUNY Oswego staff members pored over vintage photos of the neo-classical building; they drilled holes in bricks to determine details of its construction, and they wielded modern tools like lasers to replicate its unique appearance.

The new copper roof, already achieving a slight patina, is illuminated by lights trained on the cupola, which, for the first time in decades, displays four working clocks. A period-appropriate weather vane tracks Oswego’s legendary gusts from atop Old Main’s tower.

Fourteen crumbling cement front steps have been replaced with granite, and the six Corinthian columns have fresh shells of terracotta. Five original re-paned windows top white oak replicas of the doors that invited the first occupants to classes.

“It is wonderful to have Sheldon Hall, which is so intertwined with the college’s identity, finally and fully restored,” said President Deborah F. Stanley, who spearheaded the restoration of Oswego’s landmark.

“The grand old building now greets our prospective undergraduates and their families as they visit the Admissions Office there. We’re putting our best foot forward. Sheldon Hall is a beautiful manifestation of our proud history while, next door on Washington Boulevard, the new and equally impressive Shineman Center embodies our emphasis on innovation.”

It’s history worth preserving, according to Bob Lloyd ’81 M ’89 of Oswego’s Facilities Design and Construction department, who worked on the historical project from 2010 to its 2013 completion.

The east pergola, which sheltered Normalites all the way to Washington Boulevard and the trolley stop, is updated with white, cedar-topped fiberglass posts.

The exterior was pressure-washed with solvents safe for antique materials, and broken bricks were replaced with exact replicas. Mortar was mixed in small batches to achieve a perfect match. Energy-efficient reproductions replaced 430 windows.

Hallowed History

Alumni learned of plans for the building at the college’s semi-centennial celebration and alumni gathering of 1911. Principal Isaac B. Poucher told them, “There is no such thing as stand still in our vocabulary; there is no such thing as inertia of mind.”

Poucher had raised the need for a new building a half-dozen years earlier, according to Tim Nekritz M ’05 of SUNY Oswego’s Public Affairs Office, who detailed the story in his unpublished history of the college’s first 150 years. It is a story of delays and red tape, bringing the work on the $300,000 building right down to the wire for its September 1913 opening.

With $25,000 appropriated by the state legislature, college officials purchased land along the lakeshore, including founder Edward Austin Sheldon’s home at Shady Shore.

Faculty helped draft plans, with the blueprints drawn up by Franklin B. Ware, the state architect: an H-shaped edifice with the west wing for the Normal School classes, the east wing for the Practice School, and a grand auditorium and gymnasium in the center.

The structure was seen as a monument to Poucher. In his article on the principal in History of the First Half Century of Oswego State Normal and Training School, Amos W. Farnham 1875 wrote, “The new Normal School building, which is now ready for equipment on Ontario Heights, is Dr. Poucher’s visible monument, which, like a city set on a hill, cannot be hid.”

The Hon. Patrick W. Cullinan, an Oswego attorney and former state assemblyman, speaking at the laying of the cornerstone, may have foreshadowed the future naming when he said, “The State of New York has assented to a most liberal appropriation for the erection upon this spot a temple of learning worthy of the fame which the Oswego Normal and Training School justly enjoys…a memorial of that great educator who consecrated his life to the cause of education and whose name is inseparably identified with the Oswego School.”

At the college’s Centennial celebration in 1961, Old Main was renamed Sheldon Hall in honor of the Founder.

Less than a decade after opening, during World War I, the Normal Building was home to a Student Army Training Corps, graduating 400 auto mechanics, blacksmiths, pipefitters and telephone linesmen, according to evidence uncovered by Nekritz.

A 1918 pamphlet, To The Boys Overseas and Half the Seas Over, reads: “Every morning at 6:30 the bugle blows ‘Reveille;’ and 200 men form in front of the building for the raising of the flag. At seven o’clock they are in their classrooms.”

Fire!

The auditorium fire of Jan. 18, 1941, is burned into the memory of many alumni.

Al Johns ’42 and his future wife, Ruth, emerged from the movies that night to empty streets. “We went up there and saw the fire in action. After that the building was pretty well filled with smoke, and the student body was asked to help clean up and wash the woodwork and furniture during that week following,” Johns said.

Barbara Brown McCormack ’44 said, “The night that Sheldon Hall burned, I was home in bed. My father came up the stairs and said, ‘Where is your violin?’ I said, ‘At school.’ He said, ‘It is gone’.” Ruined were a Steinway grand piano, a $1600 Hammond organ, and students’ instruments.

“What was rescued?” asked McCormack. “My violin. Apparently the case was fireproof.” With the help of Dr. Lloyd Sunderland, chair of the music department, she had the violin repaired and at graduation in 1944 she played it, accompanied by her mother, Helen Picken Brown ’18.

Nekritz also writes of a suspected arson in the library in 1950. Amid burned matches and furniture cushions, investigators found an empty frame that had held an oil portrait, valued at $2,400, of former president Ralph W. Swetman.

On stage

From the 1965 Ontarian: Members of the Student Education Association of New York State are shown on the steps of Sheldon Hall.

The restored auditorium remained a focus of college life until the building was temporarily closed.

“Every day we had to go there first,” recalled Betty Reid Gallik ’45, speaking of chapel. “We would have a little ceremony before classes and say a prayer. They checked to make sure we were there.”

Davis Parker ’47, Beta Tau Epsilon dance chair, remembers sharing the stage with President Swetman to announce the first intrafraternity dance. “It was a big deal to get the frats together.”

Parker recalls wartime gas rationing was in effect. “There was a big confab as to whether people would drive. It was decided that if you couldn’t walk there, it was OK to drive to the dance.”

Alumni remember the iconic front steps, depending on their generation, as a place for graduation, class photos, watching homecoming parades, or senior toasts.

Betty Gallik has vivid memories of meeting Eleanor Roosevelt there. As president of the Women’s Athletic Association, she was invited, along with the late Betty Burden ’45 and M. Carol McLaughlin ’45, to greet the First Lady.

Parker recalls having geography with Isabel Kingsbury Hart 1907 and psychology with Donald Snygg in Room 100, known now as the historic classroom, with its tiered rows seating 77. For Betty and Bill Gallik ’47 Snygg’s lecture was their only shared class and the scene of an embarrassing incident. “I was feeling my beads around my neck and didn’t the pearls break!” Betty said, describing falling pearls. “And Dr. Snygg said, ‘I’m sure Betty would appreciate it if someone would help pick them up’.” Bill came to her rescue.

The modern era

The 100,000-square-foot building, placed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1980, exceeded the state formula for funding, according to a history compiled by Robert Schell, emeritus associate dean of students. The Office of General Services issued a call for proposals, and the Sarkisian Brothers firm soon began to turn Old Main into a conference center and hotel.

Sheldon’s historic status required interior doorways, windows and moldings be maintained in original style. The auditorium was converted into a ballroom and banquet facility, and the gymnasium became a hotel lobby, with a porte cochere added to the north side for arriving guests.

In the late 1990s, legal issues caused the developers to discontinue the project, and the state turned the building back to the college. It was rededicated to Oswego’s use in September 1998 on the eve of President Deborah F. Stanley’s inauguration.

“It was clear at the outset of this administration that bringing Sheldon Hall back to the college was a priority for members of our campus and alumni community,” President Stanley said. “It had been vacant or in the hands of others since 1983—it seemed our heritage was no longer our own. So, we worked to find means to restore the building’s iconic look and made plans for it to have purposes that fulfilled its original central role in new ways.”

President Stanley said Sheldon Hall is now brimming with life around the clock as a multi-use building. It has classrooms for the School of Education, residential rooms for students, daycare and playground for children, a chamber music series and other special events in the auditorium, and administrative offices for offices of Admissions, International Education, and University Development.

“What makes it so wonderful,” President Stanley said, “is that when you walk through Sheldon Hall today, you absorb the history of our institution in every corridor and doorway, while you also encounter its future around every corner.”

With the renovation complete, tradition and vision are united in the “Temple of Learning” we know as Sheldon Hall.

]]>http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2013/08/19/temple-of-learning-restoration-commemorates-sheldon-hall-centennial/feed/0Oswego Goes to Warhttp://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2011/03/04/oswego-goes-to-war-2/
http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2011/03/04/oswego-goes-to-war-2/#commentsSat, 05 Mar 2011 02:11:19 +0000http://oswego.edu/magazine/?p=88They’ve been called “The Greatest Generation.” When duty called, they put their lives on hold to defend freedom across the world. They are the wartime classes and they are a very special part of Oswego’s history.

Class of 1945 when they entered in 1941.

When they entered in the fall of 1941, the Class of 1945 numbered 100 strong — the largest freshman class in the history of the Normal School. They spent a carefree autumn settling into local rooming houses, working hard in class, enjoying dances and flirting with members of the opposite sex.

Then came Dec. 7, 1941, and their world turned upside down.

“Everything changed when we came out of the movie theatre Dec. 7,” saidDenham Griffin ’47. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

They would learn where Pearl Harbor was all too quickly, and over the course of the next four years many more names as well: Omaha Beach, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima.

By the time 1945 rolled around most of the men were still in uniform. The graduating class was less than half of its original number, and mostly female. Only 41 would march across the stage in Sheldon Hall, rebuilt from a devastating fire in January 1941. The men would return as veterans, however, and go on to graduate in 1947, 1948 and 1949. Even today, reunions include members of classes from 1940 to 1949, many married to each other.

Calm Before the Storm

All that turmoil was just a blip on the horizon as the Class of 1945 got off the train or bus to begin their undergraduate adventure.

1945 Ontarion

“The railroad came into Oswego at that point and it was a nice day,” said
Denham Griffin. “The nice taxi cab driver said he had a good room for us, so my buddy and I said, ‘We’ll look at it.’”

At that time most students lived in private homes, three or four to a
room. Thanks to that cabbie’s advice, Denham and his friend the late Tom Richardson ’46 (who would become president of New Jersey’s Montclair State University) landed the jackpot — single rooms for $3 a week. “We were very pleased,” he added. Even after $3 a week for a supper meal at Herbie’s Diner, that left them plenty of money for books . . . and courting the girls.

Sylvia Norton Griffin ’47 lived during freshman year in Dubuque’s house, along with seven other girls, and worked to pay for her room and board. Later she would live in the Chetney house. “They had 20 girls, but only one bathroom. The tub was in a separate room,” she recalled.

Liz Grieve Leal ’45 lived in Shady Shore with President Ralph and Mrs. Alice Swetman. She did odd chores around the house for her room and board. “I was a ‘handy helper’ . . . I got Dr. Swetman’s breakfast and made Mrs. Swetman’s coffee and took it up to her. She liked to stay in bed and practice bridge hands.”

Moran

After finding a place to live, the frosh had to go through orientation. “One of the upperclassmen would write you a letter before school opened and he was your big brother and he explained what to expect,” said Ernie Leal ’47.

At that time freshmen orientation was a little different than today’s version.

“They used to hit you with paddles,” said Ernie, referring to the playful tradition. “And you had to wear an Oswego beanie and you had to sing all four stanzas of ‘O Blue are Ontario’s Waters.’”

In Uniform

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Oswego students began enlisting in the armed forces. Throughout the war, they would leave, some never to return.

Bell

“A number from our class were killed, and there was no one to help us with that,” remembered Norma Sutherland Church ’45. “Three men I dated were part of that.”

Others spent years in the service,
returning to Oswego when discharged. Bill Gallik ’47 was in the original class of “60-Day Wonders.” He received his commission at Notre Dame University. “They decided we weren’t so wonderful — they gave us two more months.” He would serve on Chichi Jima and Guam. “I was on board a ship for 10 months before I
became commanding officer.”

Ernie Leal had to wait a bit. “A lot of fellows enlisted right after Pearl Harbor, but I was 18 and you had to be 21, and my parents wouldn’t let me.” He would enter the reserves for a six-month stint in the fall of 1942 and be shipped
right out.

Rose

Davis Parker ’47 signed up in 1943 and was trained as a weatherman. He spent two years in New Guinea before finishing his schooling. After he returned he would move to the Rochester area, where he met and married his wife of nearly 61 years, Jane.

President Ralph W. Swetman and other professors wrote frequent letters to student-servicemen abroad. Dave Parker remembers the librarian Mary Hennessey writing to him. One letter from Swetman, dated Aug. 15, 1945, filled the guys in on the annual summer session at Shady Shore: “We had a wonderful evening at the traditional weiner roast last night. The swimming was perfect, the hot dogs were still hot dogs (with the inevitable indigestion), but the community singing which followed was really good — with the best in barber shop harmonies.”

Wohl

Swetman concluded, “Even as this letter is being written, the thrilling news
of the Russian entry into the war, the atomic bomb and the Japanese peace
feelers, is coming over the radio. It will not be long now. When you fellows all get back, this college will hum as never before.”

Those boys who were lucky enough to survive the war did come back. Many would live in Splinter Village, where “the wind really whistled through the buildings, but we hunkered down and persevered as we had learned to do in WWII,” writes former professor William S. Reynolds ’49,
a student-veteran who worked as a carpenter to help maintain the complex. Many of the vets would wed their college sweethearts and are still married more than six decades later.

History-making Class

The Class of 1945 was entering Normal School at the tail end of the Great Depression. Parker remembers that times were tough economically. “Everybody was in the same boat,” he said. “Nobody had much money, but we made out OK.”

“We were content to go to the Oswego Theatre,”said Denham Griffin. “Thirty-three cents in the balcony and 44 cents in the orchestra.

“We always sat in the balcony — 10 cents was a lot, at a nickel for a cup of coffee,” he said. “You had one suitcase; one or two people had a radio — that
was rich.”

“Every dorm had one phone — because the boys called for dates,” added Sylvia. “There were only three or four cars on campus, and they mostly belonged to handicapped guys. The girls didn’t drive generally.”

The Class of 1945 would make Oswego State history as well, as the college changed from a normal school to a state teacher’s college in their freshman year. They had a special way to express their joy.

“When we started there was a big sign in front of the two buildings — it read State Normal School,” said Denham. “In the spring, when the State Legislature gave a degree to the elementary education girls, we ripped down the sign, carried it through town and threw it in the river.” Parker added, “Wish we had it back!”

Norma Church remembered the sign-tossing incident as well. “We made
a circle and sang the alma mater,” she
said. “A policeman tried to get us to
disperse because we didn’t have a permit for a parade.”

The campus was honored by a visit from Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The late Betty Burden ’45 and the late M. Carol McLaughlin ’45 were among those to formally greet the First Lady on the
steps of Old Main (now Sheldon Hall). “I remember they had a few of us who were president of our groups shake hands and talk with her,” remembered Betty Reid Gallik ’45, who was president of the Women’s Athletic Association.

“I kept looking at her; she had this great big diamond pinky ring,” remembered Liz Leal. “She wasn’t a very good-looking lady but that big diamond just caught your eye. At that stage [of life] you were interested in that kind of thing.”

Mrs. Roosevelt was instrumental in bringing the Jewish refugees to Fort Ontario, the only place that housed World War II refugees on American soil.

“We had some of the refugees in our classes,” remembered Norma. She and her roommate had two over for supper and the guests reciprocated by inviting the girls to a special concert at the fort.

While there were only two buildings on campus — Old Main and the IA Building (now Sheldon and Park halls) — the wartime classes were taught by faculty whose names grace most of the buildings on our present-day campus. Residence halls are named for Jimmy Moreland and Isabel Hart, and students today attend classes in buildings bearing the names of Marian Mahar and Gordon Wilber. Max Ziel’s name adorns the gym.

The wartime classes: They had seen history, made history and will always be a big part of the history of SUNY Oswego.